The Heart of the Range eBook

Racey Dawson spread his legs wide and laughed a reckless
laugh. He felt reckless. He likewise felt
for these men ranged before him the most venomous
hate of which he was capable. These men had killed
the father of Molly Dale. It did not matter whether
any one or all of them had or had not committed the
actual murder, they were wholly responsible for it.
They had brought it about. He knew it. He
knew it just as sure as he was a foot high. And
as he looked upon them sitting there in flinty silence
he purposed to make them pay, and pay to the uttermost.
That the old man had been a gambler and a drunkard,
and the world was undoubtedly a better world for his
leaving it, were facts of no moment in Racey’s
mind. He, Racey, was not one to condone either
murder or injustice. And this murder and the injustice
of it would cruelly hurt three women.

He laughed again, without mirth. His blue eyes,
glittering through the slits of the drawn-down eyelids,
were pin-points of wrath. His hard-bitten stare
challenged his enemies. Damn them! let them shoot
if they wanted to. He was ready. He, Racey
Dawson, would show them a fight that would stack up
as well as any of which a hard-fighting territory
could boast. So, feeling as he did, Racey stared
upon his enemies with a frosty, slit-eyed stare and
mentally dared them to come to the scratch.

But in moments like these there is always one to say
“Let’s go,” or give its equivalent,
a sign. And that one is invariably the leader
of one side or the other. Racey Dawson saw Luke
Tweezy turn a slow head and look toward Jack Harpe.
He saw Doc Coffin, Honey, and Austin, one after the
other, do the same. But Jack Harpe sat immobile.
He neither spoke nor gave a sign. Perhaps he
did not consider the present a sufficiently propitious
moment. No one knew what he thought. Had
he known what the future held in store he might have
gone after his gun.

Tense, nerves wire-drawn, Racey and Mr. Saltoun awaited
the decision.

It came, and like many decisions, its form was totally
unexpected. Jack Harpe looked at Racey and said
smilelessly:

“Wanna view the remains?”

CHAPTER XX

DRAWING THE COVER

“You don’t understand it, do you, Peaches?”
Racey inquired genially of Peaches Austin when he
found himself neighbours with that slippery gentleman
at the inquest.

Peaches shied away from Racey on general principles.
He feared a catch. There were so many things
about Racey that he did not understand.

“Whatcha talking about?” Peaches grunted,
surlily.

“You—­me—­Chuck—­everybody,
more or less. You don’t, do you?”

“Don’t what?” A trifle more surlily.

“You don’t see how and why Chuck Morgan
is so all-fired friendly with me, and how I’m
a-riding for a good outfit like the Bar S, when the
last you seen of me, Chuck was a-hazing me up the trail
with my hands over my head. You don’t understand
it none. I can see it in your light green eyes,
Peaches.”